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Articles for "Raketenstart"

You can find more graphics explaining the instruments of the InSight mission on flickr

In his logbook, Instrument Lead Tilman Spohn who is back in Berlin since April and communicating with JPL via the web, gives us the latest updates regarding the InSight mission and our HP3 instrument - the 'Mole' - which will hammer into the Martian surface. read more

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Credit: ESO/M. Montargès et al.Betelgeuse in January and December 2019, captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT)

Curiosity is high, a lot has been said and written, but nobody knows what is really happening with the star Betelgeuse. Its luminosity has decreased drastically over the last five months. Now, there is speculation that the star could soon become a supernova – the explosion at the end of a large celestial body's life. A team led by Miguel Montargès of KU Leuven in Belgium has compared two images of Betelgeuse acquired by the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in January and December 2019 and has discovered something surprising – it is not only Betelgeuse's brightness that has changed, but also its shape. read more

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Earth observation and artificial intelligence can be used to assist with sustainable development decisions. Some years ago, Earth underwent an epochal change, albeit one that was consciously perceived by only a few of us. For the first time in human history, more people are living in cities than in rural areas. Although this might not seem particularly remarkable at first glance, this change will ultimately affect each and every one of us, whether directly or indirectly – because the future is urban. read more

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Can low-cost drones capable of carrying as much weight as a pickup truck be built and operated cost-effectively? An interactive event format brought representatives from industry and humanitarian aid organisations and DLR researchers together to discuss this topic. A new technology demonstrator and almost four years of research results were presented at the Symposium on Automated Low-Altitude Air Delivery in Braunschweig. read more

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No matter how many measurement flights we have already conducted, just before take-off the entire team assembles in front of the hangar and watches HALO's departure together. However, it takes days of planning and preparation to get to this point. For the SOUTHTRAC mission, all activities are carried out according to a fixed schedule, which is designed to ensure that flight preparations go as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Preparations for each flight take four days. As a measurement flight usually takes place every other day, several flights are always being planned at the same time, which is a complex task for everyone involved. At this point, I would like to present a timeline of the processes that have to take place before a measurement flight. read more

Loderio landslide (Switzerland): The colored dots mark the deformations over the course of a year. Three radar satellites and results in comparison: ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 data from 2014 to 2018 (left), Sentinel-1 data from 2014 to 2018 (center) and TerraSAR-X data from 2014 to 2017 (right). The data were processed using a special procedure called multi-temporal SAR interferometry.

Global change is no more a secret – neither is the annual TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X Science Meeting at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen! High-level experts from all over the world presented the latest state of research from 21 to 24 October 2019 and point the way for future technologies in satellite-based remote sensing. Data source and mutual starting point are the two radar satellite missions TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X. They provide indispensable data for environmental and climate research, for a better understanding of our earth. The applications are correspondingly diverse. The main research areas include forest, ocean, urbanization, ice cover, glacier, geohazards, agriculture, archaeology and technology development.

In the DLR-Blog we introduce some of the work presented at this year's science meeting. The short examples provided outline how the data of the German radar satellites support researchers worldwide

Over Switzerland, hazards due to slope instabilities affect about six percent of the territory. Particularly in the Alpine areas, landslides repeatedly lead to disasters. It is therefore of outstanding importance to continuously monitor the rate of movement of landslides for risk assessment and to survey their activity over time. Satellite SAR interferometry (InSAR) is one option for surface deformation monitoring over large areas. Recently, various nationwide maps of land deformation have thus been released in Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom. In Switzerland there is also high interest in creating deformation maps and time series of surface movement using InSAR.

Invisible danger

The very high spatial resolution of TerraSAR-X data allows for observing "invisible" or very slow landslides as shown in the latest research by Tazio Strozzi, Rafael Caduff and Andrea Manconi from Gamma Remote Sensing AG and Christian Ambrosi from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI).

They report: Our work was based on large datastacks on the Loderio landslide of in the Canton of Ticino. The Loderio landslide is an example of a very slow but large and active landslide – with movements rates of a few centimeters per year. We used multi-temporal interferometric approaches to process the radar data. Thereby we obtained meaningful results for satellite-based monitoring of landslides in the Alps.

Our results show that the L-band has an advantage when it comes to temporal decorrelation over vegetated areas and relatively fast movements. The long-wave frequency range is less affected here than are the C- and X-bands. For this reason, the fastest moving part of the Loderio landslide could only be detected with PALSAR-2 data from the Japanese earth observation satellite ALOS-2. On the other hand, the C- and X-band are more sensitive to the very slow moving sectors of the landslide. Then TerraSAR-X data are preferred: they offer a high-precision spatial resolution, so we obtain a higher density of measurement points and are thus able to study local phenomena.

At last, the airborne observatory SOFIA has returned to Germany! In the early hours of the morning on 16 September, the research aircraft landed safely at Stuttgart airport and was visited by about 2000 astronomy and aircraft enthusiasts over the following two days. On the third day, it took to the skies for its first scientific flight over Europe. read more

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One of the AGBRESA test participants completing the rehabilitation programme

The first campaign of the Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Study (AGBRESA) is over, the 12 test participants have moved out and all the utensils, beds, equipment and instruments have been checked and stored away. The majority of staff can now enjoy a breather before preparations begin in August for the second campaign, which will start early in the following month. Now, those involved have some time to draw conclusions from the first campaign. read more

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Participants in AGBRESA are on a long-duration mission to advance our understanding of the effects of spaceflight on the human body. During the AGBRESA mission, our team, Eric Bershad, Karina Marshall-Goebel and others, seek to understand how long-duration exposure to a six-degree head-down tilt, a spaceflight analogue, affects brain and eye health. read more